Author of 3 books on instructional leadership Founder, https://xitter.cf/t.co/d2P3wxVM15 Books & PD: https://xitter.cf/t.co/u3SGIMoplV
Heber Springs, AR
Joined March 2009
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Want to help teachers improve? Get specific:
principalcenter.com/specific
Double-block reading and math for students who need it.
That still leaves plenty of time for electives, but realistically, not as many electives as students who are not behind, and that’s fine.
I STRONGLY oppose this approach to addressing grade level deficits. The students force out of electives into remediation are usually very mad about it rendering the entire remediation useless. Literacy and math blocks should be long enough for remediation for below grade level students and acceleration for advanced students.
This piece by @tracewoodgrains is the best case for brick-and-mortar schools that I have ever read.
open.substack.com/pub/educat…
Jack understands better than anyone I’ve ever read that the structure and accountability of traditional schooling does the heavy lifting.
That’s what causes learning, rather than just goofing around.
This is very good reason not to let young children use technology at all.
Let them develop the muscles and motor control for holding a pencil, not using a device that will have a different interface in a few years.
It’s new to me, but I can’t imagine scripted DI working well for higher students in upper grades, because the whole point is explicitly teaching stuff they already know.
There’s a reason it was designed for students who are behind, and a reason it never caught on broadly.
Justin Baeder, PhD retweeted
That's why I think opportunity cost is the single most important idea in school improvement. Every hour our teachers—and our students—spend on one thing is an hour they don't have to spend on something else. And this matters most of all for students who find learning hardest...
Most people don’t know about this simple system for managing paper you’re not done with yet, but it’s been around forever. Totally possible to have a clear desk every day, even if not all your work is done.
Justin Baeder, PhD retweeted
This is what teachers are being taught. Lots of teachers know it's not right. Lots of teachers try to avoid these methods. But when the curriculum, PD and teacher training is consistently like this, it takes hold.
If you want to get into classrooms every day, you’ve got to get organized. Download our free Classroom Walkthrough Planner at
Jean Twenge warned about this in her recent book:
principalcenter.com/jean-twe…
NEW: Last school year, a 7th grader viewed 4,700 YouTube videos during class.
An 8th grader viewed 5,700 videos in class.
A 2nd grader viewed ~500 in just 2 months.
Less than 5% were educational.
@nbcnews analyzed the YouTube watch histories of students from across the country. My new story shows how far some take it on their school laptops and iPads -->
nbcnews.com/specials/hooked-…
Made something new this weekend—probably our best free resource ever.
May test charging for it—get it while it’s free.
principalcenter.com/planner
Can’t wait for the next installment!
Something still strikes me as very odd and limited about Engelmann’s approach.
Like it was a bespoke remedial program, not a curriculum.
I don’t think it’ll be the whole story.
The first two episodes of @ehanford's Sold a Story, season 2, are excellent.
It was great to hear about Engelmann's background. I can't help but wonder whether, coming from outside of the field of education, and not having been influenced by the education echo chamber, contributed to his ability to design such an effective program.
Engelmann believed that all children could learn, and all children could be taught. If a child didn't learn, the problem was with the instruction, not the child.
"His lessons were intense, fast-paced, tightly structured, and his way of teaching was CONTROVERSIAL."
Engelmann gave us a program in the late 1960s that would help all children learn to read and learn math. And decades later we have teachers saying this:
"Everyone is repeating this mantra of inquiry learning is best. And the majority of our kids are two to three levels behind"
"I've literally been told by my district that I should not be teaching math. I should be facilitating math."
What an enormous mistake we have made as a society by allowing educational philosophies to take precedence over actual student learning.
I hope Emily Hanford's new season brings widespread attention to this. It's not just reading!
As I've said before, I believe what's happening in education is one of the biggest scandals out there. It will take not just educators, but parents, policymakers, and the public, to recognize what's happening and demand better education for children.
Thank you @ehanford!
Perhaps one reason DI didn’t catch on is that students were being taught what they needed, which is not the same for all students.
I suspect many people found this distasteful.
Only two episodes in, Emily Hanford has already raised:
- Direct Instruction & Zig Englemann
- Discovery Learning
- The Coleman Report
Thanks to numerous audio clips from Englemann’s films, it’s clear why his approach was controversial!
Sold a Story Season 2 is out. features.apmreports.org/sold…
You can hear episodes 1 and 2 today.
Then it's one episode a week, on Thursdays, through Nov 19.
Listening now! But I think Zig was wrong in this quote.
Teaching and learning are two different things.
You can teach, and students may not learn.
Sold a Story Season 1 felt like a reckoning over how we teach reading. But the conversation is much bigger. It’s about how we teach, period.
“If the student hasn’t learned, the teacher hasn’t taught.” — Zig Engelmann
Season 2 is here! 🎧
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
